


Where the wind takes us

by Kalypso



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Post-Episode: s10e12 The Doctor Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 16:40:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16223117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalypso/pseuds/Kalypso
Summary: On the Mondasian colony ship, Nardole and Hazran worry about how to save the children from another attack by the Cybermen - until an old friend helps them out, and creates a new future for them all.





	Where the wind takes us

**Author's Note:**

> I said last week that I was trying to clear the decks of fic involving the Twelfth Doctor before the Thirteenth arrives, and I think I can just sneak this one under the bar with an hour to spare. I meant to write it last year because, of course, the whole point was to move the dying Doctor and the TARDIS from the Mondasian colony ship to the South Pole in 1986, where the First Doctor regenerated - and I think that got Moffed by _Twice Upon a Time_ , as they didn't really seem to be at the South Pole in 1986 at all. But I still think my solution is an elegant one, as well as filling an obvious plot hole.

Alit can't sleep. In the next bed, Gazron is breathing peacefully. But Alit can hear Nardole and Hazran downstairs, and she knows from their voices that something's wrong. They try to hide it, but they look worried when they think no one is watching them. And Alit is watching. She knows bad things happen - they've been happening all her life - and she prefers to know when they might be coming.

Slipping from her bed, she tiptoes down the stairs to listen at the kitchen door.

"...can't just sit here whistling - they could come any time," says Nardole.

"You've done a lot more than whistle these last few years - you've been working on defences," says Hazran. "We'll give them a fight when they come."

"But I've had a few years - they'll have had centuries. Their weapons will be way ahead of last time - and we didn't fight them then, really, we just ran away while the Doctor blew up the floor. We can't keep playing _that_ trick."

"The Doctor said it was mathematically impossible to get to the top of the ship before they caught up. So there's no point trying."

"It's a mathematical certainty they'll catch up if we stay still. If it's not this bunch of kids who die - or get converted, same thing really - it'll be their kids." Alit can hear Nardole pacing up and down. "The Cybermen can't help winning in the end. There are so many of them, and so few of us, they've got so much more time to prepare, and they don't mind losing half an army to get what they want. But us... every life matters to us."

"Even if we could get to the TARDIS," says Hazran. "Can you really fly it? That close to the black hole?"

"I'd give it a damn good try. And once the kids are inside, that's the safest place they could be. Daleks couldn't destroy the TARDIS, let alone Cybermen."

"There's one thing you're ignoring," she says. "Even if they don't catch up with us on the way, they could be waiting when we get there. If they think we're aiming for the top of the ship, they could take the lift straight there. There could be a wall of Cybermen between us and the TARDIS."

"Could be," he says. "But going up there is the only plan where we _might_ escape. Every alternative I've come up with just postpones losing."

Hazran sighs. "It's such a responsibility, deciding for them."

Alit opens the door and walks into the kitchen. "You don't have to. You can ask us what we want. We're old enough to decide now."

"Alit!" exclaims Hazran. "How long have you been there?"

"Long enough to size up the situation," says Nardole. "What do you want to do, Alit?"

"I think we should try to escape."

"What about the others?" asks Hazran.

Alit shrugs. "You'll have to ask them. I can only tell you what _I_ think."

"You're right," says Nardole. "We should talk to them in the morning."

"Tell them they're probably going to die?" says Hazran. "Most of them will be too frightened to think straight."

"Do you think we're not scared already?" asks Alit. "Most of our parents are dead. We used to live in a house attacked by scarecrows at night. And then that world blew up. Lots of us have nightmares, and wonder how long before it all happens again."

Hazran hugs her. "I'm so sorry! It's not fair you have to deal with any of this!"

"No, well," says Nardole. "That's one thing we can agree..."

And then there's a knock at the front door, and all three jump. Hazran grips Alit tightly. "Get the gun!" she hisses at Nardole.

"Cybermen don't usually knock," he says as he walks to the door and throws it open. Alit's hoping the Doctor has come back at last, but it's two women.

" _Bill!_ " exclaims Nardole.

"Bill?" repeats Hazran, looking puzzled, and Alit's puzzled too. The only Bill she knows was a Cyberman, though a strange one, sometimes friendly, sometimes frightened, sometimes very frightening, but a Cyberman, with that blank white face and sing-song voice. This Bill is a young woman with skin as dark as her own, and lively eyes, who laughs out loud at Nardole's surprise.

"Gotcha!" she says. "Bet you never thought you'd see _me_ again!"

"But... how did you..."

"Get my body back? Heather did it." She nods at the other woman.

Nardole yelps. "Puddle girl!"

The woman smiles, but says nothing, while Bill raises a dripping forearm.

"I'm a puddle girl too, now."

"Oh... that's nice. I suppose."

"We've come to get you away," says Bill.

Nardole looks worried. "Does that involve us all turning into puddles? Because... well, better than turning into Cybermen, I see that, but personally I like being warm and cosy."

"We've brought the TARDIS," says Bill. "Heather can fly it."

Nardole throws his arms around her in relief. "Ooh... you really are quite wet. But that's the best news I've had since..." He trails off.

"Where's the Doctor?" asks Alit.

"He was killed fighting the Cybermen," says Bill sadly. "We've brought him back to the TARDIS, and once you're somewhere safe we'll leave him in it, to float through space for ever. That's what he'd want, don't you think, Nardole?"

"Well, if it isn't, it's what the TARDIS would want," he says.

"Thanks so much for coming back, Bill," says Hazran. "And I'm so pleased to see you - well - to see you like this. I'm sorry about what happened..."

"That's all done with now," says Bill. "So - all we need to do is decide where to take you?"

"I've an idea about that," says Nardole. "But let's wake everyone and tell them we're going. The sooner we're off this ship the better."

The youngsters are scared, at first, to hear they have to move on again, then baffled, when they see the tiny ship that's come to rescue them, then thrilled, when they get inside and discover the TARDIS contains a world almost as big as the colony ship - or is it bigger?

Meanwhile, Nardole explains his plan. "We'll go to Earth," he says. "It's very like Mondas, but less doomed, and you're biologically indistinguishable from the humans there. And I know someone who can help us find you new homes."

"Who?" asks Hazran.

"Me. I lived in Bristol for decades. I think we should aim for 1990. There were remarkably few alien invasions in the 1990s, so we can get there in time for a nice, peaceful period, when earlier me won't have so much to worry about."

"Has this happened for you already?" asks Alit. "Do you remember us coming?"

"No, but that's not surprising. Something funny happens when you meet yourself, so you can't remember it properly. But we should probably order some retcon from Torchwood for the rest of you – it'll be easier for the kids to settle if they don't remember what happened to them here, and think they always lived on Earth."

Alit isn't sure about that at first, but her friends seem more than ready to give up their nightmares and find new families. In the end, she decides it would be too hard to keep the secret if she's the only one who remembers - she and Gazron have asked to stay together, and Gazron wants to forget. Nardole's plan is not to place everyone in the same year, in case adoption agencies and social services become suspicious, so he works back from 1990, planting a few in each year. In the end, only Alit and Gazron are left.

"So, 1986," says Nardole. "Time to leave the TARDIS."

"Will we see you again?" asks Alit.

"Course you will! I'm staying too, to keep an eye on you all for the next few years - that's why I need to be here at the start of the stretch when you began arriving, so I can live right through it."

"And I'm staying with you," says Hazran. She hugs Alit and Gazron. "Do you think I could leave my girls behind?"

"But it's the last time I'll see _you_ ," says Alit to Bill. Heather seemed very distant for most of their time on the TARDIS, but Bill – kind, funny Bill - she has come to love.

"You never know!" says Bill. "I didn't think I'd see Heather again, but now we're going to travel the universe together!" She turns to Nardole, and says more quietly: "We'll leave the TARDIS somewhere over the South Pole and let her take the Doctor wherever she wants."

Bill kisses them all goodbye, then she and Heather step into the TARDIS and it disappears.

"Right," says Nardole. "Time for me to meet myself and arrange somewhere for you to live."

"What's it like, meeting yourself?" asks Alit.

"Risky," he says. "We don't want to be seen together, particularly not by the Doctor. Most people would just think we're identical twins, but he'd start guessing, and I don't really want him knowing about all this mucking around with the timeline..."

"Oh!" says Alit. "I hadn't thought about him being here too. I mean, Bill told me you were working for him when she first met you, but it seems odd that he's alive here when he died in our past..."

"Yeah, time travel's weird that way," says Nardole. "Another reason why it'll be simpler once you forget. Now - have you made up your minds about your new Earth names?"

Alit nodded. "I'm going to be Lucy."

"And I'm Moira," said Gazron.

"Lovely!" he said. "I'll knock up a couple of birth certificates, and then we'll be in business."

"For me, too," said Hazran. "I'm going to be Barbara. And I'm going to take the retcon along with you two, so we'll just be an ordinary family."

 

Several years later, Lucy is buying fruit at a street stall in Bristol, smiling to herself as she feels a tiny foot kicking inside her belly.

"Lucy? Lucy Potts?"

She glances round and sees a tall man with grey curls, a Scotsman by his accent, with a camera hanging round his neck.

"I'm the Doctor," he says.

"I know," says Lucy.

He looks curious. "How do you know? Have you been to my lectures?"

"No..." Lucy frowns slightly. Where has she met him before? She stares at the apple in her hand, as if it held the answer. "It must have been when I was a child."

"I'm a friend of the family," he says. "But it was another time. I didn't expect to be recognised."

"Have you been away? I can smell the wind in your clothes."

That provokes a brilliant smile. "Have you told your daughter that?"

"I don't have a daughter. Not yet, anyway!"

"But you're pregnant, aren't you?"

"How do you know?"

"I'm a Doctor."

Lucy grins. "I suppose I'm beginning to show. But it might be a boy. I thought I'd call him Bill."

"Bill's a good name. Talk to her - she'll hear you. She'll remember it later."

"Later?"

"Memories. That reminds me, I'm here on a mission." He lifts up the camera. "I'm planning a Christmas surprise for someone who misses you. Photos."

He must mean Barbara, who often complains that she doesn't have enough photographs of her girls. "I hate having my photo taken."

"That'll make it more of a surprise." He raises his eyebrow. "And you hate having your photo taken because I've never taken your photo. This will be different. Every picture will stand for a journey - an adventure. You _need_ the smell of wind in your clothes."

Lucy has an odd sense that she's waited years for the Doctor to come and say this - that she might follow him to the end of the world, with nothing but a bag of fruit for supplies.

"Come on, then," she says. "Where will the wind take us?"

**Author's Note:**

> At the time of _The Doctor Falls_ , a lot of people said Alit looked like Bill and wondered if she was somehow the same person - but I said "No she doesn't, she looks like Bill's mum!" So that was part of the genesis of this story, as well as the need to get the Doctor to the South Pole in 1986, as mentioned above - and really, is it plausible that Bill and Heather would remember to take the Doctor's body away and forget about the children?
> 
> Lucy was the name of William Hartnell's (single) mother.


End file.
